FF4 DS MBO - Part VII: Dark Elf / Dark Dragon
15MBO = Mandatory Battles Only
MBO implies that the game is completed with as few battles finished as possible. There are no restrictions as to how the experience from mandatory battles is distributed and divided between party members. The challenge is played from a new game, not a new game plus.
Dark Dragon is an increase in difficulty compared to Baigan and Cagnazzo but fortunately we have a chance of buffing up before he enters his menacing form.
Everybody is equipped with Ruby Rings, which renders the boss's Hex-induced Pig status useless. He also casts -ara magic on the whole party (if two are cast without any healing in between, some folks will die), but luckily we can silence him.
Once he's silenced, we can prepare for the big battle ahead. Protect, Shell, Haste and Blink are applied to the whole party. Yang focuses three times, Cid sets his weapon to the fire element that strikes the boss's elemental weakness. We need to do quite a bit of damage to the first form for the second one to appear so Cid pokes the boss a bit while Tellah's doing his job. When all the buffs have been applied, Cid gets berserked and Tellah osmoses his lost MP back. We sit back and wait for the Dark Elf to enter his dragon form as Cid attacks on auto-pilot.
Once Dark Dragon shows up, Tellah casts Slow on him, Yang attacks and Cecil uses Cry (in this exact order, even though attacking after Cry is more effective). Before Dark Breath is used, there's still a bit we can do. Tellah poisons the boss and casts Firaga; Yang focuses twice and uses Brace to cut the damage to be received by 75%; Cecil defends; Cid just keeps attacking.
When Dark Breath is used, Tellah and Cid fall. This is fine, we want to end the battle with just Yang and Cecil. Our restriction is that we fight only the mandatory battles, therefore we want to have the strongest possible party at the end of the game. Tellah and Cid leave quite soon but Paladin Cecil needs all the experience he can get. I probably could've just had him absorb all the experience in this battle gaining even more levels but his damage potential is low and I wouldn't really want to tank out the boss while he gets hurt from the poison status. So Yang helps out.
He focuses until he's at max attack and braces again, Cecil heals them with Cure and defends. After another Dark Breath, Yang attacks again and ends the battle.
Not such a tough battle at all, we spend most of it buffing.
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